


Better Wisdom Than Gold

by Tentaculiferous



Category: The Lorax (2012), The Lorax - Dr. Seuss
Genre: Angst, Dysfunctional Family, Emotional Baggage, Family, Gen, Introspection, Loneliness, Mommy Issues, Self-Destruction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-03
Updated: 2013-02-03
Packaged: 2017-11-28 02:16:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/669096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tentaculiferous/pseuds/Tentaculiferous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He couldn't believe it.<br/>His family was still loaded.</p><p>In which the Once-ler's family is much smarter than he is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Better Wisdom Than Gold

He couldn't believe it.

His family was still loaded.

The Once-ler sat up in his lerkim, all alone. It was dark, barely enough light from the setting sun to see the headline of the crinkeled newspaper he held out before him, eyes trained on the society pages. Even in the fading light he could recognize his mother's face. Her sugary sweet smile was painted red to match her silk taffeta gown, her familiar fur stole wrapped loosely around slim white arms barely covered by off-the-shoulder puffed sleeves. 

His great-aunt Grizelda looked far less stunning in a long black-and-white striped dress that left her resembling nothing less than an enormous, rather aggressive zebra. Not that it mattered. When you had as much money as they apparently still did, there were very few people brave or stupid enough to call you ugly to your face.

It wasn't the dresses (easily $10,000 a pop) that let him know they were still holding plenty of dough; after all, he still had plenty of his expensive finery left over from more plentiful days, as his suit evinced, still soft and sleek and whispering of money, even if it was wrinkled from lack of ironing and beginning to smell of sweat from no longer being dry-cleaned (even if it could have withstood the beating-about of an every-day washer and dryer, they had never bothered to buy a set, so the Once-ler wasn't tempted to try.). 

No, he knew they were still flush with cash because the photos were of an event, of a charity ball and supper, a charity ball and supper that cost a modest $25,000 a plate. 

The Once-lers mouth quirked up in a grim half-smile at that. He could use some charity. 

The lawsuits had hit hard and fast after the last Truffula tree was gone. It was hard to pretend you weren't doing irreversible damage to an ecosystem when you had obviously made your entire supply resource go extinct. Not to mention the class-action derivative lawsuit most of his shareholders had taken against him. His family at least, wasn't in on that action. They had managed to ditch all their company stock before knowledge had become widespread of the complete destruction of the one vital resource necessary to make thneeds. They had kept a low-profile after that, probably counting themselves lucky they weren't brought up on insider trading charges. Apparently his mother had spent that time writing a tell-all book about him, which was to be released soon. 

The Once-ler sighed, throwing the paper off into some dark and forgotten corner of the room, to quit bothering him with thoughts of what had been, what might have been, and what still might be. 

He supposed he should be happy for them, happy that they had apparently been smarter than him, more business-savvy. They had taken what spoils was left to them of the great vaunted Thneed venture and done something with it, put that money to work making more money. 

It all seemed very pointless to him, very trivial and empty. 

At the end of it all it wasn't being poor that bothered him, that had ever bothered him. It had less to do with having money to spend and having an empty pocket, and more to do with having no laughter to share, and having an empty room. 

They had it all, and it wasn't money he was thinking of. They still had each other, and always had, for richer or for poorer. For all their flaws and casual cruelty, bits of nastiness and unbelievably pettiness, they were a Them, and always had been. Something about the five of them flowed together, was cohesive and productive and just _worked_ , like horses all pulling the same carriage somewhere, they were irrevocably tied to each other in a way the Once-ler had never been. 

He had always been an outsider, desperately trying to get in. It was funny that only at his most low, morally, had he even begun to be somewhat on the same page as them. But, like most pretenders, he was found out. With every soft heart was a soft mind, his mother had often said. 

“ _Why me_?” was the question that tormented his mind this night, as it did on so many others. Why had they excluded him? His family were masters of opportunism, there was no way they had to sell him out just to profit. They could have easily helped him save his bacon, financially. Diversifying, or researching synthetic thneed fur in the beginning, or having a replanting plan in place, any of these small things would have had him strutting into that ball in his finery alongside them. With his family at his side, supporting him in all things and assuring him the rightness of his actions, he could have blazed a trail of destructive exploitation and corporate deceit throughout the world, and not have cared. 

But instead they had just said, “More, more!” and helped him to burn his own house down around his ears. They had watched him as he marched unknowingly off the cliff to his own destruction, without stopping him or giving any hint of foreknowledge. Had gleeful cruelty been enough of a reward and motive to sell him out? 

His mother would have stepped in and saved Grizelda, Ubb, or Chet and Brett from going up in flames the way he had. Why was he, had always been, family pariah, outcast, anathema? 

Lying alone in his bed, in his room, in an empty valley filled with air still smoky and burnt-smelling, surrounded by nothing living, just row upon row of dead white truffula stumps, the Once-ler buried his face in his silken green gloves. He did not cry. There would be no one to hear it if he did, and long years of lonely experience growing up had taught them that even if there was, no one would care. 

It had not all been without meaning, without purpose, perhaps. Although his family would always remain a mystery to him (an addictive mystery, one that his heart was always too eager to play the fool for, to try to find out _why, why, why_ ), he knew know that he could recognize genuine affection and warmth when he saw it, that he could discern falsity and fair-weather love. 

Before, he had never experienced anything but that false, stinging imitation of love, and so could not tell, could not call it out as the farce that it was. Now that he could look back upon a memory of honest gratitude, trust, and friendship, he could tell the difference. 

He had the Lorax to thank for that. 

Even if he never left his bed, his room, or his lerkim, even if he never saw another living soul or spoke another word heard by another again, he had that. He had not lived a life entirely swallowed by falsity, perception of the world entirely skewed by the den of vipers he had been raised by. 

“ _I'm just following my destiny._ ” 

He was still alone when he finally fell asleep that night. Somewhere out there, five people danced and danced and danced, until they were ready to drop.

**Author's Note:**

> I never could believe that his greedy family would have just went back to their farm and lived as normal; no, they would have sold the thneed factory kitchen sink if they could get away with it. Either they would have made off with some of the Thneed fortune and used it to keep them rich, or Once-ler's mom would have used her contacts with the rich and famous and married for the money.


End file.
